The 2025 NAPIC Collaborative Programme Funding (CPF) opportunity is now open!
| Funding Name | Collaborative Programme Funding (CPF) |
| Opportunity Status | Open for applications |
| Total Fund | £4 million (up to £1.5 million available in this round) |
| Grant Value Range | £5,000 – £100,000 |
| Total Project Value Range | £10,000 – £200,000 |
| Opening Date | 12 May 2025 10:00am UK time |
| Closing Date | 11 July 2025 16:00pm UK time |
| Types of Projects | Proof of Concept, Demonstration, Innovation Sprints, Networking Awards, Mobility Awards |
There are six funding streams you will be able to apply for. Please read the guidance available for each stream before starting your application.
Funding to support early-to-mid stage commercialisation activities that validate the development of concepts that have arisen from research. There are two tiers of Proof of Concept (PoC) projects - PoC 1 funds larger research and innovation challenges. PoC 2 funds smaller, shorter projects. Projects will be expected to develop a concept, idea or technology from any alternative protein sector which can be in a laboratory, model or real world setting to give confidence for further work.
Funding will support activities aimed at demonstrating the viability of a new technology, innovation or process to support commercial adoption. This could include development of a prototype, or pilot to demonstrate real life or close to real life working conditions.
Supports projects focused on fast iteration and testing of ideas within a short timeline. These projects are innovation challenge-driven projects aiming to overcome key technical, regulatory, or market hurdles leading to commercialisation outcomes.
Funding for inter-sector networking events and workshops which address scientific and innovation challenges at any stage from discovery to commercialisation. We will fund events that bring together academia, industry and/or third sector to share knowledge, identify problems, hold training activities or create dialogue with regulators and policy makers.
Funding to support individuals (especially early career researchers) on international/industrial placements to pursue collaborative work (upskilling, broadening collaborations, etc.) on scientific and innovation challenges at any stage from discovery to commercialisation.
All NAPIC CPF projects have a total project value (TPV) which is defined by the Research Organisation (RO) and non-research partner contributions split equally to the maximum value stated in each funding stream.
In addition, all CPF projects have a grant value (GV) which is the total cost to the RO for their portion of the project.
NAPIC will award 80% of the grant value (GV) directly to the RO. The RO will fund the remaining 20% themselves.
NAPIC does not pay directly to non-research partners.
Non-research partner contributions must be equal to, or exceed, the full grant value (GV) of the RO, and can be provided in the form of direct cash or in-kind contribution, depending on the CPF stream.
An example is provided in the diagram.
All projects must be collaborative and led by a UK Research Organisation.
For Proof of Concept, Demonstration, Innovation Sprint and Networking Award projects, the project lead must collaborate with at least one non-research partner which must be one of the following UK registered: business of any size, public sector or non-ministerial government department, charity or not for profit.
For a Mobility Award the project lead must collaborate with at least one non-research partner which must be one of the above, or an international research organisation.
All projects must be collaborative and led by a UK Research Organisation.
For Proof of Concept, Demonstration, Innovation Sprint and Networking Award projects, the project lead must collaborate with at least one non-research partner which must be one of the following UK registered: business of any size, public sector or non-ministerial government department, charity or not for profit.
For a Mobility Award the project lead must collaborate with at least one non-research partner which must be one of the above, or an international research organisation.
NAPIC are committed to supporting equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) across all our funding activities. We encourage applications from diverse teams and organisations, and expect all applicants to consider EDI in the development and delivery of their proposals.
Opening date
12th May 2025
10:00 UK time
Info Roadshows
w/c 19th May
Closing date
11th July 2025
16:00 UK time
Review process
12th July –
17th September 2025
Notification of outcome
w/c 22nd September 2025
Eligible costs align with UKRI guidelines and include expenses such as investigator/researcher time, consumables, facility costs, and travel and subsistence directly related to project delivery.
Studentships, equipment exceeding £10,000, and publication costs are not eligible for funding.
The University of Leeds, as the grant holder, will allocate funds to successful proposals and reimburse academic partners at 80% of the full economic cost (FEC). Research organisations should itemise invoices based on 100% FEC but will be reimbursed at 80% FEC.
International research organisations can apply for Mobility awards to support collaborative visits, such as a UK postdoc traveling internationally or researchers from outside the UK visiting the UK. However, these funds must be allocated to a UK-based research organisation.
Please read the guidance for the stream you are applying for before starting your application.
You will need to answer the questions in the application form and provide the following additional documents with your application:
Please ensure that you complete the entire form in one session. Exiting the form before completion will result in the loss of all entered information.
If you require the application form in a different format, please contact us at funding@napic.ac.uk
Join us for the NAPIC CPF Roadshow 2025, a dynamic series of in-person events focused on CPF and how it supports innovation, research, and partnership across sectors.
Designed to connect researchers, industry leaders, and institutional partners, the roadshow will offer insights into CPF funding opportunities and practical guidance on how to develop competitive proposals.
We’re excited to bring this national event to Sheffield, Imperial College London, Dundee, and Belfast—giving participants across the UK a chance to engage directly with the NAPIC team, ask questions, and network with potential collaborators.
| 9.30am | Arrive and networking |
| 10.00am | Overview of NAPIC and funding available |
| 10.40am | Q&A |
| 11.00am | Facilitated networking |
| 12.30pm | Lunch |
| 1.30pm | Close |
Monday 19th May 2025
University of Sheffield
Pam Liversidge Building, Design Studio 2, Room E05
E Floor, Broad Lane, Sheffield S1 3JD
Tuesday 20th May 2025
Imperial College London
Blackett Building, Lecture Theatre 3
South Kensington Campus, London SW7 2AZ
Tuesday 20th May 2025
The James Hutton Institute
Auditorium
Errol Road, Dundee DD2 5DA
Thursday 22nd May 2025
Ramada by Wyndham
CS Lewis Room
20 Talbot Street, Belfast BT1 2LD
Thursday 29th May 2025
Online Information Session
1:00pm – 2:00pm
If you have any questions, contact funding@napic.ac.uk
NAPIC will support a range of projects and activities from its Collaborative Programme Fund (CPF) of £4 million (ends August 2029). There are six streams of funding to meet the alternative protein communities’ requirements. Please visit – https://napic.ac.uk/funding/ for call guidance for each funding stream. Proof of Concept 1 & 2 (PoC1/2): supports early-to-mid stage commercialisation activities that validate the development of concepts that have arisen from research. PoC 1 funds larger research & innovation challenges, up to £200k total value, and up to 18 month duration. PoC 2 funds smaller, shorter projects of up to £100k total value, and 12 month duration. Demonstration Projects (Demo): supports activities aimed at demonstrating the viability of a new technology, innovation or process to support commercial adoption. This could include development of a prototype, or pilot to demonstrate real life or close to real life working conditions. Total project value of £50k and up to 6-month duration. Innovation Sprints (Sprint): supports projects focused on fast iteration and testing of ideas within a short timeline. These projects are innovation challenge-driven projects aiming to overcome key technical, regulatory, or market hurdles leading to commercialisation outcomes. Total project value of £20k and rapid duration with a maximum of 4 weeks. Networking Awards: Funding for inter-sector networking events and workshops which address scientific and innovation challenges at any stage from discovery to commercialisation. Up to £10K value to deliver events that bring together academia, industry and/or third sector to share knowledge, identify problems, hold training activities or create dialogue with regulators and policy makers. Mobility Awards: Up to £10k funding to support individuals, especially early career researchers, on International/ Industrial placements to pursue collaborative work (upskilling, broadening collaborations etc) on scientific and innovation challenges at any stage from discovery to commercialisation. |
NAPIC will support a range of projects and activities from its Collaborative Programme Fund (CPF) of £4 million (ends August 2029). There are six streams of funding to meet the alternative protein communities’ requirements. There is a maximum of £1.5m available in this round. Please visit https://napic.ac.uk/funding/ for call guidance for each funding stream.
Produce
This pillar focusses on enabling partners to produce alternative proteins ingredients of optimum functional and nutritional quality, delivering techno-functional, sensorial and nutritional performance in final products. This pillar will create new value chains using advanced (bio)technological and modern biological tools, circular bio-economy approaches, selection of new/underutilised plant/fungal/algal/insect proteins, and re-purposing strategies to create the next-generation of APs.
Process
This pillar uses boundary-pushing physical, bioengineering and cellular processes that minimise carbon footprints, to discover and manufacture alternative proteins and healthy products providing economies of scale. This pillar will employ precision fermentation, cell factories, new extraction/fractionation technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) model-guided scale-up to optimise AP processes.
Perform
This pillar focusses on the control of pre- and post-consumption product performance overcoming current bottlenecks in alternative proteins functionality. This pillar will employ multiscale approaches, from validated in vitro, in silico, in vivo (production, animal feed trials, human nutrition studies and consumer studies incorporating machine learning (ML)) tools, to predict, define, control and demonstrate ‘pre-production-to-biological’ performance of AP foods and feeds.
People
This pillar will guide consumer dietary behaviour towards more sustainable and healthy alternative proteins products. Using behaviour change techniques and consumer insight methods (e.g. choice experiments), this pillar will inform commercial and educational strategies to increase acceptance of APs and shape the types of products/ingredients most likely to be accepted by future consumers, providing new training and business opportunities for SMEs.
Projects will support the development of innovative solutions to address significant challenges in alternative proteins within the UK AgriFood sector.
All projects must relate to alternative proteins. This includes proteins from plants, microbes (fungi, bacteria), insects, food waste, aquaculture (aquatic plants, seaweeds, micro/macroalgae), cultivated meat and dairy, and proteins produced using precision fermentation.
Applications can address a range of areas, including food, feed, ingredients, services, equipment and systems development, nutrition, and environmental sustainability.
All projects must have a UK research organisation as the Lead Applicant. They will be the only direct recipient of NAPIC funding.
NAPIC’s collaborative programme funding (CPF) aims to address pent up demand from industry, leveraging the UK’s world-leading academic research and innovation strengths in alternative proteins.
CPF funding will be awarded to UKRI eligible research organisations (ROs) to work collaboratively with UK-based non-research partners to accelerate translation of research; overcome technical, regulatory and market hurdles; and solve innovation challenges in the alternative protein (AP) sector.
All projects must be collaborative.
Proof of Concept, Demonstration, Innovation Sprint and Networking Award project proposals must be a collaboration between one UK university/research institution and at least one of the following UK registered:
Mobility Award proposals must be a collaboration between one UK university/research institution and at least one of the following UK registered:
Or:
Funding is only payable to the Research Organisation. Projects must be delivered by UK research organisation eligible for UKRI/BBSRC funding. A full list of eligible organisations can be found here: Research organisations eligible for UKRI funding – UKRI
The non-research partner should either be registered in the UK or have a UK research and development or manufacturing site.
No. Studentships or student resource are ineligible costs and may not be requested or included in applications for NAPIC funding.
Yes, you can apply as a PI providing the following conditions are met
Eligible costs include investigator / researcher time, travel and subsistence appropriate to the delivery of the project and consumables. Subcontracting costs are allowed at a maximum of 20% of the total project cost. Subcontractors must be UK-based.
Studentships or student resource are ineligible costs and may not be requested or included in applications for NAPIC funding.
For further information on eligible costs visit:
Any individual can only be project lead on 1 application per funding stream, per round. A letter of support from your Head of School must be attached to each application.
Yes. If your application is considered not fundable but scores above 50%, you will be invited to re-submit in the next call.
All applications must be submitted via the online application portal. You must complete the online application by 11July 2025. Applications received after this time will not be considered. Please do not send us your application via email/mail.
For Proof of concept, Demonstration projects and Innovations sprints the questions focus on; Team, NAPIC alignment, Project Management, Aims and objectives, Innovation Challenge, Sustainable research, Responsible Research and Innovation, Impact, Risks and Value for money.
For both Networking events and Mobility Awards the questions focus on Activity, Outcomes and NAPIC alignment.
All eligible applications submitted will be subjected to internal or external review (please see Call guidance for more information) followed by consideration for funding by NAPIC’s Funding Evaluation Panel comprising representatives from NAPIC’s Advisory Boards. NAPIC’s Non-Executive Board (NEB) will make the final decision on projects to be funded.
Notifications of the outcome of applications will be sent to Lead Applicants. Feedback will be provided.
NAPIC will make use of three reviewer pools for CPF;
Conflict of interest is managed and reviewers must agree to a Confidentiality Agreement before reviewing any applications.
Following review, the Funding Evaluation Panel will make a recommendation to the NAPIC Non-Executive Board of projects for approval.
NAPIC reserves the right to apply a ‘portfolio’ approach. The portfolio can be spread across a range of NAPIC:
The ‘portfolio approach’ is used to make sure that funds are allocated across the strategic areas identified in the scope of the funding call. This may mean that a proposal that scores less than yours is successful.
If you are successful, you will be sent a Conditional Award Letter and asked to sign a Sub-Award letter. In addition, the Research Organisation and Industry partner(s) will also have to create and sign a Collaboration Agreement.
Once the Sub-Award letter has been signed a letter will be sent confirming approval to start the project.
Notifications of the outcome of applications will be sent to Lead Applicants. This will include feedback and an invitation for re-submission if scoring above 50%. Applications deemed not fundable, and scoring below 50% will include feedback without an invitation to reapply. Applicants are free to apply in future with a substantially different project into subsequent rounds of the CPF call.
For PoC projects, the research organisation will be paid quarterly in arrears on receipt of invoices and attendance at an Update meeting.
For all other funding streams (Demonstration, Innovation Sprint, Networking and Mobility Awards), invoices are paid at the end of the project after the final report has been received.
All applications must be submitted via the online application portal. You must complete the online application by 11July 2025. Applications received after this time will not be considered. Please do not send us your application via email/mail.
Economic impacts refer to the effects on the financial well-being of individuals, businesses, and the overall economy. These can include changes in income, employment, prices, productivity, and economic growth.
Societal impacts encompass the effects on people’s lives, communities, and social structures. These can include changes in health, education, social equity, and overall quality of life.
All NAPIC CPF projects have a total project value (TPV) which is defined by as the combined equal contributions of the research organisation and industry contributions to the maximum value stated in each funding stream.
In addition, all CPF projects have a grant value which is the amount calculated at 100% full economic cost (FEC) to the research organisation. The FEC model is defined here. The FEC calculated grant value does not include any industry partner contributions and is equal to half the total project value.
NAPIC will award the grant value directly to the RO at 80% FEC. The RO will fund the remaining 20% FEC directly.
Worked example for PoC 1:
Total project value (TPV): £200k
Grant Value (GV): £100K
NAPIC contribution (paid at 80% FEC): £80k
RO contribution (paid at 20% FEC): £20k
Industry contribution (cash/in kind): £100k
Non-research partner contributions must be equal to, or exceed, the 100% FEC grant value of the research organisation, and can be provided in the form of direct cash or in-kind contribution, depending on the CPF stream. All contributions must be defined and declared at the application stage.
Cash contribution is mandatory for PoC I, equal to, or exceeding, the grant value. A mix of cash and in-kind contribution is required for all other streams.
An in-kind contribution can include Time, Materials, Product, Process, Equipment, Training, Data. Realistic values for in-kind contributions must be declared at application.
Please be aware that whilst NAPIC will not require signed timesheets or evidence, BBSRC / Innovate UK reserve the right to audit awardees at any time. Evidence to support time / material / use of equipment will need to be retained and made available upon request for up to 7 years after completion of the CPF project.
To help us to monitor equality and diversity in who we fund, the Lead Applicant will be required to complete a short EDI questionnaire to capture basic demographic information, including age, gender, ethnicity and disability status. Whilst all PI’s will be required to complete this at application stage there will be a ‘Prefer not to say’ option for all questions.
No, you do not have to submit a collaboration agreement at application stage however it is mandatory to include a clear IP plan which will later be used to form a collaboration agreement.
You can use the Lambert Toolkit as a basis for your Collaboration Agreement, available here: University and business collaboration agreements: Lambert Toolkit – GOV.UK
The lead research organisation will establish a collaboration agreement between all parties in the project. This must include the IP plan drawn from that provided in the application. The agreement must also clearly ratify the cash and in-kind contributions of the industry partner.
There is no requirement for NAPIC to receive the signed collaboration agreement. However, by signing the NAPIC Sub-Award Letter, the research organisation provides assurance that such an agreement is, or will be in place, and agrees that BBSRC/Innovate UK may request to see evidence of it as part of an audit at any point within 7 years of the funding award.
No, there is no set template. We suggest you include information covering how you will manage pre-existing intellectual property (IP) or ‘background IP’ being brought to the project, and consideration of how you will generate and manage new ‘foreground IP’.
The Lambert Toolkit provides a framework for managing university and business collaboration, available here: University and business collaboration agreements: Lambert Toolkit – GOV.UK
All CPF projects are required to report progress, outputs, outcomes and impacts to NAPIC as a condition of the funding. The frequency of reporting required is commensurate with the scale of the funding stream.
Mobility, Network, Demonstration, Innovation Sprint and PoC 2 are all required to deliver a final report upon completion of the project.
PoC 1 are required to deliver an interim report halfway through the project, in addition to the final project report.
Demonstration, Innovation Sprint, PoC 1 & 2 projects must agree to follow up meetings with NAPICs Technology & Innovation Managers post completion of the project to monitor impact that has arisen from the funding.
NAPIC will be set up as a funder on ResearchFish, with all CPF projects created as projects therein. All lead-RO will be responsible to report outputs, outcomes and impacts attributed to the CPF funding through this portal for a period of up to 2 years following the project completion.
If you have any questions regarding this funding, please contact us via funding@napic.ac.uk
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